Hillary Clinton sat down for a lengthy interview with Bret Baier and Greta Van Susteren today. We’ve got the whole thing and would love to hear your thoughts. I thought she handled it very well.
My own opinion is that both Baier and Van Susteren did a fair job despite the fact that they relentlessly focused on Republican and right-wing talking points such as Benghazi and the IRS. I didn’t catch any concern about unemployment, health care, the Republican shutdown or education, e.g.
However, I did take issue with Van Susteren’s complaints about about the “deafening” silence in the media in the wake of sexist attacks on Sarah Palin, especially with regard to questions about whether or not she’s really the mother of her last child.
Van Susteren has a point but I’ll take it more seriously when she takes a dose of her own medicine. Where was she when Fox was going birther? In fact, birther Donald Trump has been repeatedly welcomed as a credible pundit on Van Susteren’s On The Record show since then. Remember when then-Congressman Allen West channeled Joseph McCarthy and accused The Congressional Progressive Caucus Democrats of being communists? Crickets from Van Susteren, as far as I know. And Palin herself is vicious and personal in her attacks. Did Van Susteren speak out against Palin when she accused Obama of palling around with terrorists? If so, I missed it.
Below are the four segments. Share your thoughts in our comments section.
Yes, I do know what you mean. :) Although, there were moments in the interview that seemed more like a “lawyerly deposition.” Clinton’s credentials and experience served her well in being able to fire back. Especially the Palin question. Hillary’s response took guts and I think surprised Greta. Hillary laughed toward the end of Greta’s interview and it was like she threw Van Susteren off guard, or she was told not to sympathize.
Let’s remember that the overweening mission of the Death Star commonly known as Fox News is to seek out and destroy anything faintly resembling fairness, inclusivity, kindness, open-mindedness or progressive thought. Its evil arsenal runs the gauntlet from homespun folksiness and relentless spinning of the truth to character assassination and wholesale brainwashing of the selfish and simple-minded.
It’s time we ceased to be shocked at Fox’s excesses and equally, stopped imagining a changing of their evil ways when the usual suspects seem a little less execrable on the odd occasion. Fox News is what it is – a propaganda machine the likes of which has not been seen since the Stalin-era lows of Pravda.
That’s all Fox News has- The people who were better than that at one point on their payroll are struggling to get it back, and the ones that never had it are showing.
With that being said, that was pretty much the end of Van Susteren giving a fair shake to any Dem candidate and member of congress on her show. I can count the numbers she has had on OTR on my fingers. She did like Bayh, though.
I believe it was Hillary that turned the “gotcha” tone around. Started off very stiff and formal as if it was a presidential debate. The way in which she responded to the questions softened Baier’s tone a bit during the first segment. She knows how to handle FOX’s “gotcha” guideline questions. I think both of them played right into the way Hillary wanted the interview to go. That is a compliment! She handled herself extremely well and I think she made Baier and Van Susteren look good.
Then again, I can’t speak for Van Susteren, but Baier’s trying to prove he’s one of those “news end guys” the tagline applies to.
